Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Warmth of the Sun

I don't do well away from the girls. I don't. I think about them. I miss them. I wish that I was doing anything with them other than what I happen to be doing at the time. It's sweet, I'm sure, albeit frustratingly so, and a bit of a wrinkle in my not-so-complex social life. It pushes me towards a kind of bottomless confusion as to how anyone just walks away from this. I'm also wise enough to know that circumstances damn us all, but in the most general sense, how does someone do that? I can't manage a few hours away before the desperation creeps in, and I want to see them...be with them. It's not just Zoey and Maggie. No, it's their Mom too. It's June. I don't much want to stumble into experiences without her. The emotions are a little duller, the colors less vibrant, the excitement more muted. I'm excited to come home at night, and frustrated to leave...eager to just calmly and quietly just be (pause for dramatic effect) a family.

Each fraction of time is different for each struggling soul that tries to harness it, but what is it that's so difficult about this math...

You are some kind of unfathomable miracle all by yourself, and then you go out and meet someone who spins you in enough circles that you forget who you were and are soon happy enough to be someone new. And then there's the trick, that's it, right there in that nervous breath...in the stomach butterflies of that first meeting, if you did it right, and if you picked the right one, and the right one picked you, then you needn't talk yourself into a damn thing. Perfect just is. It's hard to weave on your own. I don't know where you find the cloth for that kind of magic. Then you somehow find the space between you to share all of that with someone else, and so you when you're ready, you have a child, and when that child comes you simply abandon yourself once again, shed your skin one more time, and become someone else...someone better. Then you wrap it all up with a pretty ribbon and tie it up with a bow made of selflessness and perspective...done. Then you cross yours fingers, 'cause we all need a little luck now and again.

That's it.

Of course there are a few specifics...you know, care more about others than you do yourself...really try hard to figure out who you are and then just go and get really good at it...believe in something...etc...etc...There's lots of specifics, but in a general sense, I don't know how you walk away. I don't know how I spend any time away from these girls and the endless summer it seems to be when they're around. At some point in your circumstances you had a choice, and mine was to be something worth loving, even if it meant dismantling whoever I was at the time. If sunshine and giggles aren't worth that, well...I dunno. Sometimes I just accept the fact that I don't know much, but I know this much. I don't want to miss a thing.